Talk Nation Radio for November 24, 2011 The Politics of Pepper Spray and Tear Gas from Egypt to America
David Swanson, Kevin Zeese, Prof. Nathan Brown, UC Davis
A petition calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Katehi, by Professor Nathan Brown who teaches English at UC Davis, has been gathering momentum. According to Brown, police not only went back and forth spraying pepper spray into the faces of students who were kneeling with arms locked. There are also reports from students and teachers that police sprayed pepper spray into the student's mouths after forcing them open. The scandal has rocked the campus and parents and students are deeply traumatized. As we hear from Brown though, the main story of tuition hikes and privatization is being overlooked.
And Occupy the Highways arrives in DC and meets with Occupy Washington D.C., October2011.org, at the Hart Building. They protest the inaction of the Super Committee, which they say could have easily solved the problem through relatively simple tax reform and deeper cuts to the military budget.
Produced by Dori Smith in Storrs, CT
TRT: 29:15
Download at Pacifica's Audioport here http://audioport.org/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=45644&nav=& or at Radio4all.net and Archive.org
Clip: The Guardian's Jack Shenker in Cairo 11-19-2011, from this story Violent clashes in Cairo leave two dead and hundreds injured, Egyptian security forces open fire on thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square, leaving two dead and more than 600 injured. Jack Shenker's report helps to substantiate some of the reports coming out of Egypt that protesters have been overcome after being tear gassed. Apparently the tear gas being used has a new and more powerful content which leads to suffocation.
Protests around the world have been met with increasing force from police and military from Tahrir Square, in Egypt to the campuses of Berkley and UC Davis in California. One of the biggest concerns is the use of tear gas, and American students and their teachers and parents are speaking out against the heavy use of pepper spray by police who were called in to disperse peaceful student protesters.
Students and professors at UC Berkley and UC Davis campuses in California say they feel terrorized by police. Students and professors the target of what our guest Professor Nathan Brown calls police brutality. Brown also says the problem is the way private money is pouring in. He also discusses UC Davis police who allegedly forced studentâs mouths open and sprayed pepper spray in their mouths. (See below for an open letter that serves as a sample letter to the American manufacturer of tear gas Combined Systems, their product was shipped to Egypt. Also weâll link to information about companies which manufacture pepper spray.)
Nathan Brown's research and teaching focus is on 20th and 21st century poetry and poetics, continental philosophy, and science/technology studies. He is in the English Dept. at UC Davis. His petition calling on UC Davis Chancellor Katehi to resign had about 73000 signatures as of noon November 23rd.
Activists David Swanson and Kevin Zeese also join us. They are in Washington D.C. where the Occupy Washington DC movement has been joined by Occupy Wall Street protesters (Occupy the Highways) who walked from New York to the nationâs capital. Kevin Zeese joins us from a protest under way at the Hart Building calling attention to the reality that the Super Committee could have addressed the deficit through easy steps were it not for political gridlock in Congress.
Protesters are expected to turn out in large numbers on December 6th for a day of action for the Occupy Wall Street movement over Foreclosures. The group pointing out that nowhere is this disparity of wealth and power more evident than in the struggle to secure the human right to housing.
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